All marketers play multiple roles, and every department wishes they had a larger team. But having a smaller team shouldn’t negatively impact your strategy.
By focusing on a few key areas and using cost-effective tools, small marketing teams can achieve big-time results.
When deciding which tactics to use, small teams should focus on the ratio of effort versus outcomes.
We’ve cleared away the clutter to dive in to three proven marketing automation tips that will help your small team drive major results.
Data-Driven SEO for Small Marketing Teams
Until recently, some businesses could get away without paying much attention to their digital presence or whether potential customers could find them via search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. Neighborhood restaurants, alterations providers, and postal service storefronts ran on word-of-mouth and convenience of proximity.
Today, however, even the tiniest mom-and-pop shops realize that showing up in local search is critical.
Likewise, companies that have already established a firm digital footprint know that SEO is more important than ever. What might’ve worked when you launched your site or updated it just a year ago, likely isn’t going to keep you at the top of Google’s rankings for your preferred keywords.
Keeping up with forces that influence search (such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, Google’s quick answer boxes, knowledge panels, and featured snippets) takes a growing amount of knowledge, aptitude, and sophistication.
As such, investing in SEO should be a top priority. You might be considering one of several approaches — building SEO skills within your existing team, hiring a consultant, or bringing onboard an SEO specialist.
Regardless of the route you take, your marketing strategy must be backed by a data-driven tool for analyzing SEO. For example, Act-On’s SEO Audit Tool gives you the insights you need to refine content about your products and services in ways that attract more visitors. This feature empowers you to evaluate the SEO of any webpage, including your competitors’.
It also helps you optimize landing pages and forms so they are more likely to achieve good positioning on search engine results pages (SERPs). You can add and fine-tune metadata, such as the page title and description, and even receive useful guidelines for SEO best practices.
Upwards of 40,000 Google searches happen every second. When you have the right tools, refining and aligning your content to rank higher becomes much easier. And driving more traffic means spreading more awareness, providing more education, and generating more conversions — all of which translate to more leads and better customers.
Social Media for Small Marketing Teams
Roughly 45 percent of the world’s population regularly use social media. And in America, the average citizen spends three hours each day browsing social networking sites.
Further, more than half of all U.S. consumers turn to their social networks for purchasing advice.
And since so many people are on social media, it makes sense that your brand should be present on these sites as well. So, too, does staying abreast of what matters most in 2020 in social media marketing, which is where marketing automation can make a major impact.
Act-On’s Advanced Social Media Module has all the features you need to take your social media marketing strategy to the next level.
For instance, our built-in content curation engine uses your content analytics to identify new content opportunities and topics that are likely to increase engagement. The more engagement (clicks, comments, likes, and conversions) a post generates, the more you’ll receive recommendations for similar content.
Another way to take advantage of the power of social media is with a response dashboard. More people are turning to social media for questions and support, making it critical to respond rapidly and with the most appropriate information.
Another great Advanced Social Media feature is the social advocacy dashboard. It empowers team members across your organization to become social evangelists and brand ambassadors. By equipping your entire organization with a quick and easy way to share your messaging and content on social media, you maximize the reach of even the smallest organizations.
Act-On’s social advocacy dashboard even includes functionality to track clicks and shares generated by each team member. This way, you can reward people who are great ambassadors for your organization.
Any marketing automation platform worth considering should include automated social media tools that help marketers track their audience, engagement, content, conversions, and advocacy.
Advanced social publishing, allowing you to create, curate, and schedule content in advance, along with functionality for managing cross-functional, is critical as well.
Act-On’s Social Media Engagement & Content Management Tool provides all of these features and more!
Email Automation for Small Teams
If you’re like most marketers, you’re already doing email campaigns. Yet small teams are often forced to send vague, one-size-fits-none messages in blasts to large distribution lists.
But automated email marketing is an easier, faster, more effective way to launch, manage, and optimize your email campaigns. Better yet, it will help you accomplish much more than traditional email drip campaigns by offering an unparalleled competitive edge for marketing teams of all sizes, skill sets, and experience levels.
Unlike traditional email campaign service providers (such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and others), automated email campaigns orchestrate, track, and adjust the entire customer journey.
In-depth analytics trace the path users take from their initial touchpoint onward through their buying cycle. This data drives automated email campaigns and provides the guidance you need to personalize your marketing and send the right messages at the right times.
You no longer have to settle for bland, homogenous campaigns that aren’t designed to speak to your specific audience segments’ unique interests and challenges. Instead you can build campaigns that speak to all of your buyer personas across the entire sales continuum — from lead capture to conversion to sale and beyond.
For instance, standard email service providers typically only leverage data that is input manually. Automated email, however, uses behavioral data collection to inform lead and customer scoring, which can then be used to personalize your marketing efforts further or as a threshold for passing leads to your sales team.
Act-On Has the Tools Small Marketing Teams Need for Awesome Marketing Results
For small marketing teams, the key to efficiency and success is determining the best data-driven skills, tools, and tactics to achieve your goals on a limited budget.
Investing in a marketing automation platform rich with proven data-driven features empowers you to execute top-notch campaigns. Act-On equips you with the tools you need to automate your marketing efforts, streamline processes, and measure results.
Even better, the time you’ll save on tedious manual processes will allow you to focus on innovating and growing your strategy.
If you’d like to learn more about Act-On’s Advanced Social Media module and how we can help you implement your entire digital marketing strategy, please schedule a demo with one of our marketing automation experts. They can show you how our platform drives great value for both your customers and your business and walk you through a variety of use cases related to your specific needs and interests.